Steve
With another dazzling performance, Cillian Murphy plays the tortured headmaster of a reform school in crisis.
Under pressure: Cillian Murphy
Image courtesy of Netflix.
A “dumping ground for human waste” performing “radical societal surgery,” Stanton Wood is a reform school under impossible stress. Cillian Murphy’s headmaster Steve may have the title role but this is largely an ensemble effort, adapted by Max Porter from his own 2023 novella Shy. Shy (Jay Lycurgo) describes himself as “depressed, angry and bored,” but admits his feelings change from one day to the next. However, this is a significant day for Shy as his own mother has decided to disown him because of his disruptive behaviour and the school, his last chance saloon, has been given its closing orders. To make matters more stressful, a BBC crew has arrived to record a special interest segment for the local news channel Points West and a member of parliament (Roger Allam) has popped in to spread a cloak of good will and condescension.
The year is 1996 and the BBC interviewer (Priyanga Burford) drills the students with insultingly simplistic questions (“can you describe yourself in three words?”), which will not make the Beeb very happy. Trying to take control of this farcical conflagration is Steve, who starts the day wistful and genial before beginning to let the events unpick his sangfroid. It is a spirited, emotional balancing act by the actor in one of the best performances of his career (and we’re including Oppenheimer), just as the staff of Stanton Wood wade into the dramatic deep. Of course, Tracey Ullman is terrific as the deputy head, as is Emily Watson as the school psychiatrist, but there are terrific performances, too, from Lycurgo, Araloyin Oshunremi, Luke Ayers and Joshua J. Parker as some of the deeply troubled students.
Recalling the urgent, pressure cooker dynamic of such recent TV productions as Boiling Point and Adolescence, the film refuses to let up in its 24-hour time frame, with Robrecht Heyvaert’s handheld camera and some whacked-out drone shots adding a manic sense of the surreal. The Belgian director Tim Mielants, who previously worked with Cillian Murphy on Peaky Blinders and Small Things Like These, steers his shaky ship through an intense round of passionate showdowns, maintaining a helter-skelter pace in keeping with Steve’s own unravelling state of mind. Yet beneath the melodramatic showboating is a call to arms for Britain’s unstable reform institutions and for the love and dedication of its exasperated foot soldiers. It is interesting that both this and the equally emotive I Swear have been released at the same time, both exploring the state of neurodivergence in Britain in the year of 1996. Hopefully, things are considerably better now than they were then. Aren’t they?
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, Simbi Ajikawo, Douggie McMeekin, Youssef Kerkour, Roger Allam, Emily Watson, Ahmed Ismail, Joshua Barry, Araloyin Oshunremi, Luke Ayers, Joshua J. Parker, Priyanga Burford, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Ruby Ashbourne-Serkis.
Dir Tim Mielants, Pro Alan Moloney and Cillian Murphy, Screenplay Max Porter, Ph Robrecht Heyvaert, Pro Des Paki Smith, Ed Danielle Palmer, Music Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow, Costumes Alison McCosh, Sound Senjan Jansen.
Big Things Films-Netflix.
91 mins. Ireland/UK. 2025. UK and US Rel: 3 October 2025. Cert. 15.
